The Sunday Assembly has a Problem with Atheism

In the past, I have spoken highly about the Sunday Assembly; let me explain how my view has changed.

When Sanderson Jones brought his show here to New York, I jumped at the chance to volunteer as an organizer at the first Sunday Assembly here in America. I signed on because it looked like a great opportunity to inject a bit of positivism into our irreligious community. After all, this movement has been known to be a bit negative from time to time. Once Jones had left, the organizers went to work on recreating his show for an American audience. It didn’t take long for us to start finding issues to disagree on. A minority of organizers wished to make the event not a show but an actual church service and agreed with Jones about cutting out the word Atheist, not having speakers from the Atheist community, avoiding having an Atheist audience, and moving the show out of a bar setting to a more formal church-like setting. We even had one organizer who wanted to avoid having anyone from what he called “The black t-shirt crowd.” In order to deal with some of these issues and keep the show running smoothly, we decided to have a board of directors, to which myself and 6 others were elected. The majority of the board shot down all of these anti-atheism ideas and pushed for a show that was both a celebration of life and our godlessness.

As a group, we put on some excellent and well-attended events and enthusiasm was high. Everything seemed to be going really well, so it came as quite a surprise when we discovered a few from the anti-atheist minority had been conspiring to steal the show. The majority was notified via skype shortly after our last show that the minority was resigning from the board en mass, with the intent to turn the Sunday Assembly into something more like a Unitarian church service. Jones informed us shortly thereafter that he was with the minority, and we were no longer a part of the official Sunday Assembly.

What started out as a comedic Atheist church wants to turn itself into some sort of centralized humanist religion, with Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans at the helm. As Jones and Evans are preparing to launch their 40 days and nights tour, designed to open up new Sunday Assemblies across America (and relaunch the new milquetoast show here in New York), you might be asking to what end. From an insider’s perspective, it would seem Jones and Evans are trying to get rich from their new-age religion. The fundraiser for this tour was, in part, to pay themselves some pretty hefty wages according to sources inside their organization. It only takes some grade-school addition skills to see why they feel a pressing need to spread across America. After all, we saw how well that worked for L Ron Hubbard.

Sanderson Jones. A 21st century, great-white, charismatic, ginger Jesus… and like all the saviors before him, he wants your money.

Jones has been quoted as saying,”I’d like to make this as un-atheistic as possible. Atheism is boring. We’re both post-religious.” This may be true on his side of the pond where the majority do not identify as religious, however here in America, Atheism is a struggle for equality and recognition from our long-standing religious majority and their institutions. It can be a painful and arduous struggle at times, but I would never describe it as boring.

The idea behind having a comedic, godless, community-building celebration isn’t a bad one. Its a shame Jones and Evans left that idea behind in favor of a more profitable one. There is, however, an alternative rising from the ashes of the cast-off majority. Michael Dorian, a former NYC SA board member and NY State Director for American Atheists, has teamed-up with Don Albert, another former board member and musical director for NYC SA, and myself to bring you something new. We have named this new endeavor The Godless Revival, and it will be the celebration of Atheism that you deserve. We have no centralized leadership or rules to follow, and we are not trying to get a paycheck out of it. The sole goal is to promote a godless celebration of life, and with that intent in mind, the first one will take place November 24th right here in NYC. Sean Faircloth will be the first speaker, and you can also look forward to great music, tasty beverages, and a fun atmosphere. If you want to know more about this project, check it out on facebook. If you are interested in starting up a Godless Revival in your own city we would be happy to help you along the way. I hope to see many of you this November in NYC.

I am better informed now. After I read your response, I finally Googled “Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans.” (It sounded like a law firm to me.) Quite a kerfuffle, this. But it seems to me that hot disputes develop whenever and wherever there is an effort to create an organization of individuals around an idea. Invariably there is a clash of ideas that disguises an underlying rivalry for the alpha dog position, and a conflagration ensues. Because there is no monetary or other strong incentive to stay with the group, eventually the effort dissolves into a forgotten puff of vapor. And so it goes.

I don’t understand the confusion here. The Sunday Assembly was something very clearly conceived of and created by Sanderson Jones & Pippa Evans. It is their thing. And they very clearly outlined the guidelines for creating your own chapter of their thing.

Starting your own chapter, and then immediately changing many of the rules (often in direct conflict of the Sunday Assembly charter), is not creating a Sunday Assembly. Conceptually, it’s no different than if the organizers had collectively decided to have a Sunday Assembly with mention of a god. It should come as no surprise that Sunday Assembly no longer wanted to be associated with something that didn’t reflect the goals of the organization.

Basically, what you did is try to create your own atheist organization. Which is great, and I’m sure it will serve the needs of atheists in NYC. Too bad you also feel the need to badmouth others in the process.

“‘Atheist Church’ as a phrase has been good to us. It has got us publicity,” Evans elaborated. “But the term ‘atheist’ does hold negative connotations. Atheists are often thought to be aggressive, loud and damning of all religion, where actually most atheists, in the UK anyway, are not defined by their non-belief.” At a recent assembly, Jones opined: “I think atheism is boring. Why are we defining ourselves by something we don’t believe in?”

Yeah, atheist holds negative connotation, so change it ,you twit; don’t ostracize those who are fantastic people looking for non-religious community. All Evans did was perpetuate the stereotype that atheists are bad, and we don’t want them.

Why focus on changing peoples’ perception of the specific word “atheist”? What value is there in that? It is, by its very definition, about as vague a description as you could possibly give about a person. It describes the lack of exactly one belief.

My identity is, well, everything else I do believe in. So why not just focus on building a community of people who share those other beliefs?

Loads of the guidelines weren’t legally enforceable under US/state law. They also included things like you can have no sponsoring organization, but the local chapter has to be a legally incorporated body. The best way to live better, help often, and wonder more is under a nonprofit charter in the US, but the only way to incorporate in the small time frame was as a company!

So obviously, the best solution is to create a splinter group, disparage the motives and aspirations of the people you were just working with, and usurp their social media outlets to promote your own interests.

“Basically, what you did is try to create your own atheist organization. Which is great, and I’m sure it will serve the needs of atheists in NYC. Too bad you also feel the need to badmouth others in the process.”

I disagree with this. The founders were slathering the term ‘atheist’ all over the place, and appealing to atheists. That they then did a 180 and overtly decided to *exclude* atheists puts this on another level entirely. I appreciate the info that’s been put out here.

Jo, I think an important distinction is that atheists aren’t excluded from Sunday Assembly. Quite the contrary. They just made the decision to make Sunday Assembly specifically not ALL ABOUT atheism, and more about just celebrating life. That doesn’t appeal to some, who want to gather and talk about the fact that they’re atheists. That’s fine, just not what Sunday Assembly is about. There’s room for both without having to disparage each other.

I stopped paying attention to them the moment they published the long list of things you had to do… It is time for those of us who live life without reference to outside authority to build alternatives. Lots of alternatives.

Your godless revival sounds very po-faced, very serious, suspicious and closed. And you’ve basically launched it through a negative, through defining it as ‘not the Sunday Assembly’, just as an atheist church defines it as a negative – ‘we don’t believe in God’. Community needs to be based on positives – on humour, openness, celebration, wonder.

Which is where I bog down whenever I contemplate how believing that a thing does not exist can motivate enough people to create a movement. It’s not that I disagree; it’s that I don’t find my absence of belief energizing enough to make me want to join a counter crusade. The commonality among atheists and agnostics is that they don’t believe in a deity. I’m not sure how many other interests correlate with that, but surely that one point cannot form the basis of a large movement. Political conservatives share many points of interests, as do liberals. How many points of interests do atheists share other than the eponymous one?

The commonality that best unites nonbelievers is Humanism. Sunday Assembly is trying to steer clear of labels, but what they’re promoting is basically Humanism (albeit a bit “lite”) without using that word.

Thanks for posting that. Sounds like a terrific idea. I love it. But when such a promo is combined with solicitations for money I fail to see what distinguishes it from televangelism. Televangelists in this country become very, very wealthy. I do recognize the reality that money is needed to develop websites, but the video doesn’t overcome my skepticism and suspicious nature. I do contribute to worthy causes, a political party (yeah, I know), and to public television. Perhaps the video should provide a link to an audited financial statement that fully discloses the group’s intake and expenditures.

Fred – I couldn’t more perfectly articulate the purpose of a Sunday Assembly. To help people united by the lack of belief in a deity figure out what else they have in common and begin to build a community based on that.

Sorry, SA, but I’ll have to toss you under the bus. I’m not willing to sacrifice momentum to kick-start a failed comedian’s stand-up career. Nor does the world need another reality TV show. Go back to the nightclubs and let us atheists do our work. But thanks…you’ve been enjoyed.

Hi Lee, it sounds like you want to do a different thing to us. All the best with The Godless Revival. We will continue doing something that is all the best bits of church, but with no religion, and awesome pop songs.

It will continue to be more like a church than you would like, and we’re fine with that. We love churches and think they are fantastic organisations. Shame it has had to come to this public mud slinging.

Also, we will continue trying to raise money and would love to hire more people, in the same way that Girl Guides and American Atheists hire people.

I would hope that the Godless Revival is something more along the lines of Anonymous picketing the “church” of Scientology; with music, dancing, cake and radio controlled toys.Pirate day! Dress like a Furry day! Fun stuff, as opposed to some ginger hippie in a suit.

Hippie in a suit does not parse. It’s in a suit…but it’s a hippie! I don’t understand what message he’s trying to send, but it doesn’t matter. Faux church services are not my idea of a fun Sunday morning. Brunch, with mimosas, is more my speed.

This is bullshit , embarrasing to Atheism and a fucking nightmare ! So apparently now we are going to have two denomination of Atheist aready – “Sunday Assembly” and “Godless Revival Church” ? This is religion all over again with atheists version of the Catholics, the Protestants, the Mormons , Scientologists all over again. This will all turn into a money making scheme very very fast – which is I thought something we all HATED about the church. It’s like a bad movie. Fuck.. I hate this.

The last one off the sinking ship please make sure the power is switched off. This is not so much a schism a fundamental flaw inherent in the design………. You are trying to jump start a church type organisation not realizing all along the that the Holy Spirit is what holds things together. Those who are trying to be creative and positive are not airheads but have the whole means of inspiring and developing something good and then you have the foisty people who love argument and the thrill of a chess match.
Who is going to listen to the extremes and is going to hold together.

“We have named this new endeavor The Godless Revival, and it will be the celebration of Atheism that you deserve.”

I think something that people have misunderstood about the Sunday Assembly is that it was never intended to be a celebration of LIFE WITHOUT GOD. It is a CELEBRATION OF LIFE, without God. Anyone is supposed to be welcome, so even though religion isn’t a part of it, both believers and unbelievers should be able to participate, just because they are sharing a positive, uplifting, though-provoking, fun, song-filled time with other people. A celebration of Atheism is great for atheists (and as an atheist, I’d enjoy that), but it excludes religious PEOPLE, when the idea of the Sunday Assembly is only to exclude RELIGION.

You can’t make money the way the traditional churches do without sheep to shear. And there aren’t many of those in atheist circles. We’ve been doing this for fun in the DFW area for 19 years and in the Houston area for 13 years. Check out churchoffreethought.org and hcof.org. We are atheists, yes, but also a-reincarnationists. We don’t dwell on any particular theological doctrine but we take notice of them when appropriate. Our goal is simply to explore this “human condition” thing without regard to tradition, authority and established belief. I can;t really tell WHAT beyond generalities the SA is about. Sad to hear it’s about making $ for the founders. And was disappointed to see the SA website say that they’ll never tell anyone that they’re wrong. WHAT!!!? Ken Ham (for one) is WRONG!

I’m a atheist; raised in a fundamentalist church. Why must atheist organizations use religious terms? I do not want to attend anything/wear any t-shirt with the word god or revival in it or on it. I know what a revival really means and I want no part of the word. I’m also a vegan and liken this to going into a vegan restaurant and seeing chicken-less chicken on the menu. I don’t want to see the word chicken, it makes me feel bad, so that’s the reason I go to a vegan restaurant. Just describe it as what it is. Can’t you have a secular celebrations without all the trite god words?

Yeah, I get that. I too was raised in a fundamentalist home (and was brainwashed into believing that shit for a long time). Most atheists, though, have never been Christians, so the words that irritate us don’t have that kind of effect on them… But I get where you’re coming from.

1. What about some numbers in terms of ” some pretty hefty wages “, if is substantially more then Sanderson used to earn or could earn after this amount of publicity on his name ?
2. When joined to S.A why didn’t check and ensure if this is a democratic organization, where representatives are elected and anybody can be replaced ?
3. I don’t see Godless Revival having the same effectiveness in creating groups elsewhere, why ?
You don’t see the need for it ?
Here seems unrealistic a bit : ” Jones informed us shortly thereafter that he was with the minority, and we were no longer a part of the official Sunday Assembly.” and there is no law ? You did not have there an organization which had some rules ? You had the stamp and the signature rights in your town (if not, do not blame Jones). Why no fight back ? Why not tell him that he is not any more part of the organization ? He is not elected, yet .